Ta Pies

Bakery: Ta Pies
Address: 4520 Avenue du Parc, Montreal QC
Website: http://www.ta-pies.com/
Style: Australian, New Zealand
Price: $$ 

I'm always happy to find these unusual "ethnic" bakeries, and while my list of bakeries from Down Under are increasing, it's still a bit of a novelty, one that I didn't exactly expect to find in Montreal. Yay!

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Despite that novelty, I'm always a bit amazed at how... boring Australian and New Zealand baking is (sorry, mate :P). I mean, Canada is like Australia's sibling. We both have the Queen and the honour of being a colony with nothing really in it but land and lots of it. We have moose; you have kangaroos. We have polar bears; you have koala bears. Granted, our common relative, England, has a baking heritage that is far from thrilling, but loaf cakes can be really good. Canada has progressed: we have date squares, and carrot cake, and cinnamon buns, doughnuts and butter tarts and Nanaimo squares -- all of which can be insanely good. Australia, you need some more sweets! ;) You have pies. That's great! But you need a little more than Lamingtons and Afghans -- I'm having a hard time ranking those, and I'm sure you can do it. Please? "Ta!" :P

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With that aside on Australian and New Zealand baking over and done with (I've been itching to write that since visiting my third bakery), let's get back to Ta Pies. This retro-inspired pie shop does focus on savoury meat and vegetable pies that come in a variety of flavours, so their sweet selection is slightly limited beyond a few types of cookies and those omnipresent giant marshmallows of a cake, Lamingtons; unlike other Aussie/NZ bakeries I've been to, there are no dessert pies. Their website also includes a sticky date pudding which sounds... so good! O.O Too bad it wasn't in store when I was there; though at $5.50, it's a little pricier for someone doing a one-person, multiple-bakery Cake Tour. ._____.

So the Lamington it was ($3.25): a nice soft square of vanilla sponge cake with a hint of raspberry on one end, and then coated entirely in chocolate and coconut. Having had a pink version before, I much preferred the classic chocolate, which was tasty and gave almost a macaroon flavour to the cake together with the coconut. Good sponge cake, but the raspberry/jam was barely there; I would have liked a little more. Nevertheless, a surprisingly addictive cake that you just can't stop eating until it's done.

Rating: ***